Can individuals currently residing in a Queensland Health Community Care Unit (CCU), and diagnosed with a severe enduring mental illness (SEMI) improve their social functioning with the introduction of Social Cognition Interaction Training (SCIT)?

None listed

This research aims to identify whether individuals currently living in a Queensland Health Community Care Unit (CCU) and who have a diagnosed psychiatric disability (Schizophrenia), maximize their recovery during rehabilitation for discharge and successful community living. Galletly et al. (2016) points out that social and economic costs for “individuals living with a diagnosis of schizophrenia is associated with a greater burden of long­term disability more so than any other mental disorder”. Individuals continue to face social exclusion, experience high levels of economic poverty, unemployment, homelessness and declining physical health (Sawyer & Savy 2014). The purpose of admission to a psychiatric rehabilitation service is to address not only psychological distress but improve recovery and social functioning outcomes. Social Cognition Interaction Training (SCIT) (Roberts, Penn & Combs (2016) is a group based psychotherapy targeting social cognition (SC) deficits which has been identified as a hallmark of schizophrenia. Green et al (2008) defines SC as the "mental operations that underlie social interactions". There are four core domains, emotional processing (perceiving and displaying emotions), theory of mind (ToM, the ability to represent the mental states of others), social perception (decoding and interpreting social cues in others)and attributional style (the way individuals explain the causes and or make sense, of social events or interactions)(Pinkham et al 2014). Trialing SCIT at CCU enhances the existing psychiatric rehabilitation program to provide the individual with opportunity to expand their recovery. SCIT targets visual and vocal perception of emotion in others, difficulties interpreting and inferring others ambiguity during conversation, identifies jumping to conclusions occurs from the attribution of subjective bias and learning to make better guesses by obtaining more information (Roberts & Penn (2009). The ability to construct representations of the relations between oneself and others, and to use those representations flexibly to guide social behaviors (Adolphs cited in Galletly et al. 2016) for improved social outcomes and functioning is the goal of researching SCIT. The aim of the research is to improve social cognition skills so individual's living with a SEMI may obtain greater “choice, getting and keeping of valued social roles” that provide meaningful and rewarding lived experiences. A trial of SCIT at CCU will identify if improvement in SC has been achieved with regards to skill development in social engagement and social functioning.

No related papers found yet.